Many retail stores use a merchandise display system that includes a shelving system where a gap exists behind the shelves on an island gondola used in the retail store. An island gondola is essentially a two-sided gondola, which is most often located at the aisles at most grocery, drug, and mass merchant type stores. One side of the gondola faces the aisle the consumer is in and the other side of the gondola faces the aisle adjacent to the consumer. Generally, the gondola consists of a pair of uprights, a shelving system and, either one or two separate pieces of pegboard. When two pieces of pegboard are used, one piece of pegboard faces one aisle and the other piece of pegboard faces the adjacent aisle. When one piece of pegboard is used, there is only one means of mounting of peg hooks. The peg hooks installed on one side will be seen on the other side. Additionally, the peg hooks mounted on one side cannot share the same mounting holes with a peg hook on the other side.
The uprights of the gondola stand proud of the pegboard and are essentially the same depth throughout the industry—generally the depth of approximately a two-piece pegboard. One pegboard may be utilized and installed in the uprights of the gondola. When a shelf is then installed in the upright, the back of the shelf may fall short of the pegboard itself, thereby creating a gap, as illustrated in FIG. 1. This gap may vary, depending on the manufacturer of the pegboards and/or uprights. This gap has been found to vary from approximately 1 inch to 3 inches. This gap thereby allows products of that size or smaller to fall off the back of the shelf, often all the way down to the base deck or base shelf. When inventories are done, the product may be missing from the shelf, does not get sold, does not get counted, and usually then is perceived stolen. This may cause a large potential for lost revenue.
In one exemplary aspect of the present invention, this gap is filled by a device that can be simply installed into the shelving system to ensure that no product falls through the gap.